Strength
by writingscientist
Summary: "He must always be strong. He must always be that genius detective who taught them everything they knew. The fact that their mentor was afraid was not something that they needed to know."


_Just wanted to look at L's more caring side. He has to be logical and aloof all the time, so in those rare moments when his emotions do take over, he's very vulnerable. Takes place a few years before the LA BB Murder Cases._

* * *

"Ahhh!"

_The sounds of dozens of guns fired repeatedly. Flames that licked at the flesh like the tongues of hungry demons. Screams so full of agony that they hurt his ears. And his boys. His boys! Wait. _

L, formally L Lawliet, now the world's greatest detective, sat up in his bed, panting. The young man opened his eyes and let them adjust to the darkness. He was in his room; his safe, familiar room. Nothing was out of the ordinary: the bowl full of candies still sat where it should on the desk, the bookshelf was as overflowing as ever, and the endless stacks of case files had not moved. All was as it should be.

L put his trembling hands over his eyes, but relaxed slightly. Of course nothing was wrong. This was Wammy's House, his beloved Wammy's House. The veritable paradise for "extraordinary children" he had worked so hard to create. The last safe haven for him and those who would one day follow in his footsteps. Nothing bad could ever happen to this place. Not ever. But, still….

The young man leaned over the side of the bed and retrieved the small, stuffed panda, who, it seemed, had fallen to the floor during his thrashing. At twenty two, it did seem a trifle strange that he still needed to sleep with a toy, but L never felt embarrassed by it. Mr. Panda had been with him since before he had come to this orphanage and had continued to offer comfort whenever he was afraid or upset. Besides, he was a detective. He saw things every day in some of his cases that would make a grown man scream; to deal with that, any remedy was a good remedy, stuffed animal or not.

L hugged Mr. Panda to his thin chest, burying his nose in the soft fur, thinking. The young detective rarely slept and was now, rather harshly, reminded of why. Horrible nightmares had plagued him since his early childhood and their numbers had only escalated when he had officially begun commanding the world's police forces as a preteen. And after the tragedy a few years ago with A and BB…Well, insomnia had become his constant companion.

They were so real, too, these visions; the price he paid for such a powerful mind was a terribly vivid memory. He would never forget anything he had ever seen or anything he had ever done; the images would never fade. _The loud bang of a gun, blood coating his father's temple, his mother's screams as she held his lifeless body, seemingly unaware of the blood that now flowed from the shot wound in her chest…._

L shivered. And it had only gotten worse after that. L the detective might have been able to turn off his heart when the need required it for a case, but L Lawliet the man still saw in his mind the faces every day of all the people he had killed. Oh, he had never been the one to pull the trigger, but it was by his orders that these people had died. Criminals and innocents alike. He never once regretted it in regard to the criminals: he loyally served that great, blindfolded lady, Justice, and these people had been a threat to her. They had broken her laws and must pay the price for it. That was the rule that we all must live by.

But it still didn't make it any less difficult. Any of these people could have easily been him, if not for the kind hands that had led him here. And the innocents who had lost their lives thanks to his mistakes were even worse. Police officers and civilians, adults and children, he had seen them all die. L might be the person who put hundreds of killers behind bars, but he still had more blood on his own hands than all of them combined. Even some of the children he had personally saved had not been spared these tragedies.

L thought of A and felt as though someone were squeezing his heart. He could still see that small, slender body lying spread-eagle on the floor, sandy hair fanning out from his head, glasses slightly askew, and a bottle of sleeping pills and a final note clutched in one delicate hand. The expression on his pale, boyish face had been calm and emotionless, as if he were deep in slumber. And BB's own expression had been even worse as he had stared from A's corpse to L's horrified face.

His strange, crimson eyes, which had always been so full of an almost maniacal glee whenever they had looked at him, were now cold and hard and disgusted. Beyond Birthday had never been bothered by death to an almost inhuman point. And he had always assumed that L, his companion and lover, was the same way. BB had said as much to him later that night. He had accused L of being weak, of not understanding the inevitability of death and using it to his advantage. The two had fought after that, first verbally, then physically, before Quillish and Roger had separated them and sent them both to their rooms. BB had been gone by morning and L had not seen him since.

Except, of course, in these awful dreams, for almost all of L's nightmares featured his fallen heir. The man had ability to get into someone's head and stay there, whether they liked it or not. There was just something about that burgundy stare of his; it was so unnerving, like he could look straight into your soul and see all that there was to see. And he had done this to L more often than either of them could count. The man he had failed, as well as the one he had lost, would forever haunt him.

L thumbed his lip. Quillish had told him to look at these nightmares, to test what it was he feared, because if he let these phobias get the better of him, his work would suffer and then more innocent people would get hurt. L sighed. The man was right of course, he was always right. He set his mind to the task. Thankfully, he remembered his dreams better than most people.

_He was standing in a dark room, which was only lit by a few torches on the walls and was cold and wet. It rather reminded him of some of the old medieval torture chambers he had read about. BB stood at the center, his red eyes burning as brightly as the flames around him and his mouth twisted into a sick imitation of a smile. At his feet, sat L's current heirs; their mouths covered and their faces terrified. _

_They were sitting in the correct order of their ranking: Matt was to the left, Mello in the middle, and little Near to the right. None of them were tied up, but it was obvious that they couldn't run. L felt his heart speed up. His students, his heirs, his boys. BB looked from them to L with that same horrible expression, before lifting Matt up by the scruff of his neck. The boy stared up at his mentor. His goggles had been pushed up into his red hair, so L could see the fear in those deep blue eyes of his._

_BB snapped his long, thin fingers and abruptly spaces opened up in the walls, revealing dozens of guns, all pointed directly at the ten year old child in front of them. Matt's eyes widened in fear and he whimpered behind his gag. BB just chuckled in that awful way of his and snapped his fingers again. The guns began firing all at once, bullets tearing into Matt's pale flesh. _

_Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, the firing ceased and Matt fell slowly backwards, his eyes closed and his body covered in blood. Mello's scream of anguish was muffled slightly by the cloth over his mouth, but it still managed to reverberate all around the room. BB kicked him to shut up him, but Mello just turned his head and growled, a low feral sound that contrasted greatly with the beautiful boy that it came from. BB ignored the noise and dragged Mello over to another wall, where a small post stood with wood piled near the base. He then tied the snarling child to it and grabbed one of the torches. He held it near the pile of wood, menacingly. Mello stopped fighting for the smallest moment, realizing what was coming, before doubling his efforts at escape. _

_BB's canine teeth looked sharp in the flickering light, as he placed the torch onto the wood. A fired was born immediately. It burned quickly and brightly, eating up the wood in a matter of moments, before it turned its hunger to the post and the boy tied to it. Mello screamed as the flames took him, still resisting up until the very last second. After a few minutes, the fire had burned itself out and Mello was gone._

_L wanted to be sick, but he could only watch in horror as BB nodded contently at his handiwork and walked back over to where Near lay curled up on the floor. Near. Despite, L's vehement claim that he did not pick favorites, he had always had a special bond with his littlest charge. Perhaps it was because he had known the boy much longer than the other two. Near had arrived at the House when he was a toddler and L had loved him ever since. He was so like the great detective, from his habits to his thought processes to his eyes. _

_Now those great, dark eyes were looking at him, their depths filled with fear and grief. BB crouched down, so that he was at the boy's level and pulled a long knife from his pocket. His expression had been smug when he had killed the other two, but now he looked downright excited. L knew why: BB had hated Near ever since he come to the House. L had cared for the tiny baby and BB resented him for stealing L's affections away from him. Near might have been a child, but he was still a threat. As for Matt and Mello, he had never gotten to meet them before, so their deaths were just for the thrill of it. _

_BB held the knife to Near's pale throat. Near made no noise, but his eyes were pleading. BB's grin widened. He slowly pressed the knife's edge to the boy's skin, soft at first, then harder, until a small trickle of blood flowed down the gleaming blade's edge. _

"_NO!" L screamed. _

_And then he had woken up._

L opened his eyes again. Quillish had been right: as frightening as that dream had been, by thinking about it, he now knew what it meant. He was scared of losing his boys. Those three loved him more than anything and he loved them back just as much. He had already lost so many in his brief life and now he was terrified of losing them, too. BB was a representation of his fear, and with good reason, taking the man's personality into account. His fallen angel was out there somewhere and would one day take his revenge. L would only hope that his heirs weren't hurt in the process.

L sighed again and ran a hand through his thick, inky locks. Most of the terror he had felt only a little while ago was gone, but he there was still an uneasiness in his stomach that wouldn't go away. It wasn't the dreams or the House or even BB, really. It was just his life. For a person to have as much power as he did, he must also have a great deal to lose. And that scared him.

The young detective got out of bed and quietly headed out of his apartment. He glanced at the door to Quillish's room and smiled slightly, before heading downstairs. The man did so much for him already; he wouldn't trouble him with this. The journey to the bottom floor wasn't a long one and he reached his destination after a few minutes. L's little smile grew as he pushed open the door and silently crept inside.

Near had been in the same small room since he had arrived here six years ago and only the thing that had changed since then was the crib had been switched out for a bed. Legos of all kinds were in boxes in the corner and toys of every size and shape covered the shelves in the bookcase. Still, despite the fact that this was obviously a child's room, the place was extremely neat and decorated completely in white. White walls, white lace curtains, and a white set of sheets on the bed. L walked over to said piece of furniture and crouched next to it.

Near was curled up in a little ball under his blankets, looking like a baby mouse in his den, fast asleep. His stuffed rabbit, which he had had since he had arrived, was clutched tightly in his bitty arms. His face was impassive in rest as it was awake, but every so often the slightest twitch hinted at the emotion buried deep inside him. L grinned. No doubt the kid was plotting, even his sleep.

L lovingly ran his long fingers through his student's soft, white curls. He wanted to pick the boy up and hold him close, to let himself know that his precious heir was safe and no harm would come to him. But L knew that would only wake the child and then Near would question his mentor as to why he was here in the early hours of the morning. And L, who could not lie to him, would have to explain about his nightmares and that was something that could not happen. His boys were brave and brilliant, but they must never see his weaker side. He must always be strong. He must always be that genius detective who taught them everything they knew. The fact that their mentor was afraid was not something that they needed to know.

L placed a gentle kiss onto his heir's warm forehead before leaving as quietly as he had entered. He walked up one set of stairs and stopped at the room at the end of the hall. He opened the door and went in. Unlike the other room, which had been clean to an almost obsessive degree, this place was mess. Mountainous stacks of video games sat next to the small TV and the bookcase was full to the bursting.

Still, the room was clearly divided. One of the walls was covered with posters of various game characters, while it's opposite only had a single cross nailed to it. One desk was piled high with computers, some in pieces, while the other had so many text books it was wonder the thing hadn't collapsed under its own weight. The room's only trashcan was filled with chocolate wrappers.

But, despite the obvious possession lines of this room, only one of the beds was occupied. The owner of one decorated in light blue sheets and a warm quilt had seemingly abandoned it for the Mario-themed one and the boy who owned it. Mello lay snuggled up to Matt's chest, his breathing even and deep, and his face calmer than one would ever see when he was awake. L smiled, not surprised in the least to find them like this. The two had become roommates several years ago when Mello had joined Wammy's House, arriving a few months after Matt, and they had been inseparable ever since.

L did not want to see the day that they parted because it would tear them both to pieces. They worked perfectly together, evening out each other's flaws and making the other one stronger. Mello was courageous and unstoppable, but also hotheaded and impulsive. He would always need someone to watch out for him or else he would probably destroy himself. That was where Matt came in: he kept Mello from doing anything stupid or dangerous. At the same time, Matt needed Mello to give him focus. The boy often joked about being Mello's sidekick, but L knew it went deeper than that. He needed someone to live for, someone to love. Without this, he would drift aimlessly with no purpose until he burned himself out.

Actually, now that he thought about it, all three boys needed each other. As strong as the rivalry between Mello and Near was, they still complimented each other's personalities. Most people would have chosen Near as their heir long ago for his mind, but L knew that to do that was a bad idea. The child was calculating and possibly better than L had been at his age, but there was fundamental element that he still lacked. He was too hesitant, too shy to make a move, even when it was needed. Mello did not have this problem at all, even he wasn't as smart as Near. He might have been a little too fired up sometimes, but he made the right decisions in the end.

Mello and Near needed each other to create balance and Matt was needed to keep Mello in check. They must all stand together if they were ever to take their mentor's place one day. And L had no doubt that they would. When the time came, his boys would team up and then there would be nothing that could stop them.

L petted Mello's soft, blonde tresses. The boy purred contently in his sleep, like a kitten. His mentor smiled at the sound. He really was a lovely child to look at. Feminine and slight, maybe, but beautiful in a way that surpassed gender. Besides, he was tougher than anyone the young detective had ever met. The boy had made it quite clear when he arrived that despite his appearance, he could easily beat up anyone who challenged him. Which he did and quite enthusiastic to boot. Nobody had called him girly since.

With his other hand, L ruffled Matt's dark red hair. The boy made a happy sound and unconsciously moved toward the touch, like a puppy who wanted to be scratched. Matt wasn't pretty like Mello, but his hair was a stunning coppery color that contrasted beautifully with his pale skin and he had a warm, goofy smile that nobody could resist. If Mello manipulated people by glaring at them like a panther, Matt simply won them over by smiling at them like a friendly dog. Besides, L knew that when Matt was older and biology had replaced his gangly limbs with lean muscles, he would be absolutely gorgeous.

L continued to stroke his heir's hair for a few more moments before kissing them lightly on each of their brows and exiting the room. He treaded up the remaining flights of stairs to his apartment and climbed into his bed. Everything was fine: his boys were safe and though BB would make his move one day, for now things were peaceful. Tomorrow, no one would know of what had happened tonight. He was L. He must remain strong. For the world, for the extraordinary children of Wammy's House, and for his boys.


End file.
